Page 77 of Shadow of Justice
Bennett Cutler and Jamie Simmons practically melded their foreheads together as George Luke took the stand. My heart dropped for a moment as George stumbled on the last step up to the witness box. The bailiff was right there and caught him by the elbow, but as George turned and waved off further help, his skin had turned ashen.
“Are you all right, Mr. Luke?” the judge asked.
George put a hand up. He coughed for a moment, reached for the water bottle in front of him with a shaky hand, but answered the judge in a clear, strong voice. “I’m perfectly fine. Just old.”
But he was more than old. In the hour since Deena Landon took the stand and George heard her story in the jury room, it seemed to put twenty years on him. I worried about what the next hour would do. But George gave me a determined stare and the slightest nod. He was ready. So was I.
“Mr. Luke,” I said. “For the record, will you explain your relationship to the victim in this case?”
“Ellie was my daughter,” he said. “My firstborn. My baby girl.”
“You have another daughter,” I said.
“Yes. Erin. She’s three years younger than Ellie was.”
“Thank you. Mr. Luke, I want to make sure you’re okay. If at any time you need to take a break, do you promise to let me know?”
George was defiant, rod straight in his chair. “I will not need a break, Ms. Brent. I will not need anything. Ask your questions.”
“All right. Mr. Luke, I’d like to take you back to the year Ellie went missing. Where was she living at the time?”
“She lived with her mother, me, and Erin. Ellie was saving money to move out but she was a full-time student. She was paying her own way. And I mean paying her own way. She didn’t take any loans out. She worked to pay for her tuition. So we let her live with us rent free.”
“You must have been very proud of her.”
“I was. I still am. Ellie was a go-getter. Never any drama with her like we had with her younger sister before everything happened. Ellie was serious. Driven. Polite. Respectful. Everybody always says teenage girls can be a nightmare. Not my Ellie. She was just a smart, sensible, hard-working kid. Always got straight As. Earned her own money from the time she was old enough to babysit at twelve years old. And before that, she helped around the house. Never had to remind her to do her chores.”
“I see,” I said. “She sounds like a very special young woman. Mr. Luke, we’ve heard testimony that Ellie was a junior in college, pursuing a nursing degree at the time she went missing. Is that accurate?”
“It is. She was gonna graduate early that December.” George’s voice broke a little, but he quickly recovered.
“Mr. Luke, how familiar were you with Ellie’s routine, her friends, at the time she disappeared?”
“Well, she was twenty-one. A proper young lady, you know? She didn’t have a curfew or anything. And she had her own car that she paid for. Insurance too. So I didn’t require her to report to me like I did her younger sister. Erin was just eighteen at the time. Still in high school.”
He was rambling a bit. It would be tricky to strike the right balance. I wanted George to feel comfortable telling Ellie’s story. But I had to keep him focused as much as I could.
“Did you know her routine? When she had class, her work schedule? Things like that.”
“Oh, for sure. See I was semi-retired at the time. I worked as a sales rep for a flooring company. I got laid up for a while after I was in a car accident and hurt my back. So around the time we lost Ellie, I was only working out of the home two days a week. Ellie’s mother, Claudia, was working part time as a bank teller. Anyway, Ellie and I had lunch together a couple of days a week. She worked nights as a home health aide for this elderly woman over in Pine Ridge. The lady had dementia and a heart condition. She required twenty-four-hour care. Ellie worked there from eleven to seven five nights a week. She had class in the afternoons. She’d come home. Sleep for a few hours. My wife or I would make sure she was up by twelve-thirty. We’d have lunch together. Then Ellie would go to class from two to eight a few afternoons a week.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s helpful. Was Ellie dating anyone that you knew?”
“Not that I knew. No. She said she didn’t have time for boys. I mean, she’d go on dates here and there. But nobody serious. I don’t think she’d had a date in several months before we lost her.”
“What about her friends? Did you know any of them?”
“Sure, Ellie had friends from high school she kept in touch with. But she mostly hung around kids in her nursing classes. There were three girls in particular that I knew she was close with. Sabrina, Lisa, and Shante. I met Lisa and Shante a few times. Real nice girls.”
“Okay. What about Jamie Simmons? Was he one of your daughter’s friends?”
“I didn’t meet Jamie until after Ellie went missing.”
“How did that come about? Your meeting him?”
“He came to the house. I wanna clarify. That time … those weeks. It’s kind of a fog for me. So I don’t remember the first time I met him.”
“Fair enough. But let me ask this another way. You mentioned you knew three women Ellie was close with from her nursing classes. Sabrina, Lisa, and Shante. Did you know about Jamie Simmons as well?”
